Grow help needed! T8 lighting - Low budget

Ritz5220

New Member
Hello! I'm so excited for this to be happening. This project quite literally fell into my lap, by all means I accept the challenge that has been set before me. Where could I possibly begin? I simply request you don't laugh at me when you hear me sad story as to how my plants came to be what they are today. I will of course soon introduce you to my pretty little ladies, but late is the hour. Germination was my worst enemy... I ruined several of my finest bag-seeds. I'm talking some primo stuff for around here. All due to lack of materials( and let's face it, knowledge. But my friends one had survived, oh yes she fought. My beautiful Cynthia, went with the shot glass soak method, only managed to crack the seed and expose the tail. This along with two others I managed to pull a miracle out of them. Their names are, Angela, Belle, and of course Cynthia. They fought so hard for life to to my ignorance, again I do sincerely ask for little judgement on my lack of material, and again knowledge. I'll get right into and just tell you, I actually managed to grow these girls with... Wait for it. Drum roll please.... 200 watt incandescent light bulb.

I'm waiting for the crickets and the jaw drop stares. Yes. People I know. What an idiot, are you serious. If there is one thing you have read, it's that you can't do that. But despite my stupidity, and with a second 200 watt bulb, i grew the three with surprising results, although thin stems and weak rooting issues at the beginning. I transplanted them with more soil twice, each with better result from the girls. On my second transplant I bobbed belle, my shining star plant to a bigger "pot" if you will.( I'll get into that later) So adding to the addition are DiDi and Evette, which were both successfully germinated properly with the paper towel method( though I will not that I had wrapped my paper towel with a grocery bag and placed with my lights and plants, kept at 78-82 degrees).
Anyhow, they were added, 8 days after original batch. Now here is the silver lining folks, I know your waiting to yell at me about all the great alternatives for lighting and saving money, I get it. Shame on me. But fortune and blessing have smiled upon me and by happy circumstances through my job I came across several, yes several 4' x 2' 600 watt ballast fluorescent lights.( if that's correct, I'm going to double check tomorrow for 100% accuracy).

But cue the golden bells and the lights, I have literally been saved. Currently running them with the 4, 30 watt 3500k bulbs. My plants have instantly thanked me but starting their second, and third sets of leaves wishing 36 hours of being under their new lights. Will note i'm still experiencing issues with Angela, stunted growth, leaves are deformed and some very light yellow/browning on ends of leaves. I knew going into this I would soon run into nutrient deficiencies. Will note that Evette has yet to sprout its first set of leaves, have seen the first node though, nearly microscopic. I suspect my soil maybe to dense for it, maybe over watering. Decent soil if anyone has any feedback on it. It's called hyponex by Scotts. They certainly didn't seem to mind it once I transplanted.(Will be providing pictures of plants, lights, and set up tomorrow.)


So there it is everyone. I am the newbie who by dumb luck has come across some great equipment here. And I'm very excited to break into this world, I'm coming in throwing punches and my girls are amazing, I love them very much and am so appreciative of them and this whole experience. Words can't express my joy for wanting to train my green thumb! My oldest plants are 15 days old today, the others are 8 and 9. You will of course notice stunted growth when I upload my pictures, but bear with me and my new set up, and again, I would love all the feed back in the world!! I need advice like its no ones business. I want to treat my girls right so they treat me right. So with that I will close for tonight, marking the beginning of my very first grow , and grow journal. All questions and comments are very much obliged and will be gladly answered and appreciated. I'm splitting outta here every body, take it easy and light up!

-Ritz!
 
Hello and welcome, one and all. As promised for anyone who has read into this, I have some pictures!!

Broken record here, but once again I would appreciate the least of amount of harsh criticism. But I digress, here are my girls! In order from birth.
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Gonna keep this pretty short have to run off soon, and I had difficulty figuring out how to upload properly.
Anyways, these are my girls! Belle is my biggest and brightest shining star, Cynthia was my problem child until I took better care of her.
Angela is having difficulty rooting properly and is showing deformities. DiDi show signs of being late but healthy. Evette is late and not showing much improvement. But I'm quite confident I will be able to pull the girls back to life with the proper care. Would love any feedback on my first set of babies!

I also not that I have started six more bag seeds in germination. Waiting for results on them. Other than that, I will be back later to discuss my lighting equipment, issues and questions I might have. So to anyone willing to participate in my post please feel free to leave any comments, questions and I will be sure to follow up with everyone! Until then, take it easy and light up!


-Ritz!
 
Searching for help on my lights, need to know just what exactly I can push with this light and my coverage area. I took a few pictures if anyone know anything about electricity and all that good stuff. Any and all help would be appreciated.

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Firstly those lights are not 600w. 600w flourescents do not exist. Those lights run 32w 4' flourescent bulbs. With 4 bulbs, each light will draw 128w. These lights will work fine for you especially during vegetation. You can flower under them as well just dont expect the same results you would get off HID lighting and certainly dont expect the yields of a 600w. That being said the spacing on those reflectors is pretty wide for getting the most out of your bulbs. If you have a basic understanding of electricity and construction I would highly recomend getting your bulbs closer together.

You make it seem as though you have access to lots of these lights, you may consider supercharging your lights basically you just connect each ballast to one socket instead of two. I have never done this myself and admitedly dont know much about how well this works or how safe it is but do some research if you decide to go that way.

Those incandescent lights you used didmt do anything for your plants except heat them. The light emitted by incandescent bulbs is in the yellow spectrum and plants cant use that. Your seeds germinated because when a seed germinates it is underground and doesn't need light. Once it came out of the ground growth stopped thats why your two week old plants look like they are two days old. I bet you would have similar results growing in the dark. Now that you have those lights your plants should be happier but if you can get more light you will get better results.

Now the other thing is you need to think about spectrum. Remember how I said incandescent lights are in the yellow spectrum the same is true for some flourescent lights. You need to make sure you are using the proper spectrum by checking the K rating on your bulbs. K stands for Kelvin. You want either something in the 5000-6500k range for veg and around 2700k for flower. Mix both spectrums for your best results.

Those lights run fairly cool but they still produce heat and depending on where you are growing you may need to get an exhaust fan and highly recomend you do. Not only will help to battle the heat it will keep your girls in an abundance of fresh air. Give us mpre of an idea about your set up. Are you in a tent? A closet, a 10'×10' room all these make a big difference. Keep reading and researching there is a ton to learn about this hobby and the internet is full of people making claims that are anytging from not quite right to flat out wrong. The basic how to and everything you need to grow threads here are great places to start. Also get clear about your goals. If you want this grow to be a fun hobby that may yield you a bit of smoke and you can learn grweat your set-up will do that. If you want to be self sufficient depending on how little you smoke you would probably need to beef up your set-up.
 
Hello, you sound very informed good sir, I have this thread posted else where, under a grow journal. I'm headed to it myself to update, would very much appreciate if you bring some of your experience over that way. Would love to Telly oh all about my present/future setup!
 
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